Victoria
-- Re Marijuana Drawback (letter, Aug. 24): Regardless of how
harmful marijuana (or other recreational drugs) may be to the
user, criminal sanctions are appropriate only when harm to
another is involved. No one suggests "decriminalizing" murder,
for example, because that is a real crime, whereas the ingestion
of recreational drugs is not. Government has no business creating
crimes where none actually exist. The foolishness of doing
so is proven by the fact that we waste hundreds of millions
of tax dollars every year shoring up the profits of organized
crime.

The
net effect of the biggest drug busts is to maintain the price
of that drug high enough to generate enormous profits, out
of which truly criminal activities (extortion, fraud, car theft,
etc.) are financed. When Justice Minister Martin Cauchon backed
down on his timid suggestion that marijuana use be decriminalized,
he should have been toasted by Hells Angels from coast to coast
for ensuring their profits will continue for years to come.

The
easiest, fastest, and cheapest way to deliver a crippling blow
to organized crime is to eliminate the profits by legalizing
the use of all recreational drugs, and regulating and taxing
them as we do tobacco and alcohol. We may have no love for
tobacco companies, but they are far more under government control
than any biker gang, and they pay taxes, and can be sued as
well. It is legal to kill oneself; how can any lesser self-inflicted
injury be rationally considered a crime?

Medicinal
marijuana users lit up on a downtown street today to protest
a delay in releasing government-grown cannabis to sick people
and a recent police raid on a Toronto cannabis supply centre. "Now
I have to go to the street to find (marijuana)," said Paul
Phillips, 43, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in Sept.
2001. "It's not as good on the street and it's maybe twice
as much money." Phillips, whose cancer has spread to his
brain and bones, said a doctor originally suggested he start
smoking marijuana to offset the effects of his medications. "The
marijuana helps me to eat. It gives me an appetite and it
helps me sleep at night so I can stay alive." Phillips and
his wife drove 100 kilometres to Toronto from Beaverton,
Ont., to join about 100 other marijuana users smoking their
natural medicine on a busy street in front of Justice Department
offices. He credits medicinal marijuana — obtained
from the Toronto Compassion Centre with a doctor's prescription — with
bringing his weight back up to 150 pounds from less than
100.

Established
in 1997 by a Toronto criminal lawyer and law professor, the
Toronto Compassion Centre was providing marijuana to 1,200
sick people before it was raided last week. "We operated for
four years with impunity. The police knew about (the centre)
and for reasons that will never be completely understood by
me they raided them last week and put them out of business," said
lawyer Alan Young. Young and three others associated with the
centre were arrested Aug. 13 and charged with trafficking in
a controlled substance and possession for the purpose of trafficking
over a three-month period. Marijuana was also confiscated from
the office. The raid effectively shut down the centre. To add
to the frustration of medicinal marijuana users, Federal Health
Minister Anne McLellan told the Canadian Medical Association
this week she won't release any of the marijuana being grown
for the government to distribute to sick and dying patients
until it has been tested in clinical trials. The stipulation
suggests that the government marijuana, being grown in an old
mine Flin Flon, Man., won't be made available to severely sick
or dying patients for years, if ever. "Either the government
has to provide the medicine or they have to allow the clubs
to flourish," Young said.

Although
possessing marijuana is illegal in Canada, several police officers
stood by and watched the protesters smoke their drugs on the
street Friday. No charges were laid. "We're here to keep the
peace, and they're being peaceful," said Sgt. Mark Hayward. "As
far as them doing anything wrong, that would have to be determined
by further criminal investigation and that's not warranted
at this time because they are being peaceful."

Canada's
Health Minister has all but snuffed out the government's much-ballyhooed
plans to supply marijuana as medicine. Anne McLellan said Monday
that she feels uncomfortable with the idea of people smoking
pot to relieve pain, and that Ottawa will not distribute marijuana
for medicinal purposes until clinical trials are completed — trials
that have yet to begin.

Ending
months of silence and speculation that the federal government
may be backing away from its controversial $5.7-million project
to grow "medicinal-grade" marijuana, Ms. McLellan made her
comments while speaking to doctors at the annual meeting of
the Canadian Medical Association in Saint John. The doctors
have led a powerful lobby against prescribing pot as medicine,
arguing it has not been tested for safety or efficacy. As well,
sources say, Ms. McLellan has been swayed by concerns from
U.S. officials that Canada would be making cannabis more available.

The
minister suggested Monday that the courts forced the government
to adopt the controversial marijuana-as-medicine plan, and
that she was looking to Canada's highest court for a way out. "I
hope this whole issue gets before the Supreme Court of Canada
fairly soon so we will have the opportunity to reargue this
case before the Supreme Court so we can get some clarity about
what is happening here," she said. But Toronto lawyer Alan
Young, who has led the court challenges to make marijuana legal
and accessible, said the minister is either "confused, or she's
being disingenuous." There is no case heading to the Supreme
Court that deals with the use of the drug as medicine, he said.
In fact, Mr. Young said, the federal government actually opted
not to take the medical marijuana issue to the country's top
court after the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the right of
Torontonian Terry Parker to smoke pot to ease his epileptic
seizures. It was that landmark decision in 2000 that prompted
Ottawa to create its current medical-marijuana program.

That
is because the court gave the government 12 months to amend
the law that made it difficult for sick people to possess pot.
If the government had not acted in that time frame, it would
not have been a crime for anyone to possess marijuana. "The
federal Department of Justice made a decision not to appeal
to the Supreme Court at that time," said Mr. Young, who had
represented Mr. Parker in the case. What's more, he noted,
Ms. McLellan was the federal justice minister at the time.

The
only pot-related case heading to the Supreme Court is to be
heard later this fall and it involves the larger question of
whether the federal government has the right to bar the recreational
use of the drug, Mr. Young said. Ms. McLellan's unexpected
comments in Saint John followed a question from Kingston physician
Raju Hajela and she initially joked, "Just a minute ago, I
thought to myself: 'I'm going to get out of here without a
question about medical marijuana.' " Dr. Hajela said he was
angry about government regulations permitting certain patients
to use pot because "there is no scientific evidence for the
benefits of marijuana." A single joint, he said, is as harmful
as 10 cigarettes.

The
minister, clearly uncomfortable, spoke inconclusively for several
minutes in response. Ms. McLellan said marijuana should be
subject to the same standards as other prescription drugs and
agreed it was hypocritical for her department to allow pot
smoking while working to reduce tobacco-smoking rates. "I understand
the issues that we in this room have and feel in relation to
the lack of scientific evidence, possible liability issues
and the fact that the federal Department of Health does find
itself in a slightly ironic position when I am responsible
for the single largest campaign in the federal government — the
anti-smoking campaign," she said. Ms. McLellan then added: "I
don't mean to say that the courts made me do it, or made [former
health minister] Allan [Rock] do it, although there is some
truth to that. The courts took us down a certain path." Mr.
Rock, who is now Minister of Industry, met the court-imposed
deadline and introduced regulations in 2001 permitting medically
qualified patients — anyone from AIDS patients to back-pain
sufferers — to use marijuana.

The
government also hired a company to grow massive quantities
of marijuana in an old mine in Flin Flon, Man. At least 806
patients have qualified under these special regulations to
date. But many of them face a desperate Catch-22: being legally
entitled to possess a drug that it remains illegal to buy.
None of the 250 kilograms of pot harvested so far has made
its way into the hands of patients. What's more, the government
is paying Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc. to produce
400-kilograms of marijuana a year for the next four years.
A group of eight patients is now heading to Ontario Superior
Court to get access to the Manitoba supply. Ms. McLellan said
she is "not insensitive to those who feel it helps in their
final days or acute-illness situations" but said she owed it
to Canadians to ensure that all therapeutic drugs be rigorously
tested before approval and use.

Doctors
in attendance applauded Ms. McLellan's speech, in particular
her acknowledgment that she felt a "certain level of discomfort" about
marijuana as medicine. The Canadian Medical Association and
its insurer, the Canadian Medical Protective Association, have
told physicians not to sign patients' requests to be federally
approved to possess cannabis because prescribing an untested
drug could leave them vulnerable to legal action. Henry Haddad,
president of the CMA, said that he was "very encouraged" by
the Ms. McLellan's statements. "The minister is obviously getting
a lot closer to our position, so I'm very encouraged that there
will be changes coming to the regulations," he said in an interview.

They
may have come from a meadow in British Columbia -- or a well-lit
basement in Brampton, Ont. But whatever their origins, two
strains of marijuana have been selected, from hundreds of others,
as possible candidates for clinical research in Health Canada's
beleaguered program to investigate and supply cannabis as medicine.
Both varieties pack a punch, sources say, with a level of THC,
marijuana's key active ingredient, of 10 per cent and up. The
strains have been cloned to produce plants in large quantities.
To date, Health Canada has been unable to beg, buy or borrow
marijuana seeds or plants from any legitimate source -- including
the U.S. National Institute on Drug Addiction or the Netherlands.

The
federal department has instead had to rely on dope seized in
drug busts across the country to support its medicinal pot
plot in an abandoned Manitoba mineshaft. Although the final
decision on ideal strains has not been made, the two candidates
to emerge from the bags of illegal weed are the first signs
of progress in months. "It is progressing well," said Gillian
Lynch, director general of Health Canada's Drug Strategy and
Controlled Substances Program, who confirmed last week that "we
are looking at a couple of strains." Any approved harvest from
the government's year-old pot-growing operation in Flin Flon
will be used in clinical trials to assess the safety and effectiveness
of marijuana in treating symptoms associated with diseases
such as AIDS and multiple sclerosis. But the program, on which
the government is spending $5.7-million, was originally designed
to supply the drug to all sick Canadians medically qualified
to possess it. Now, however, Ms. Lynch said that aside from
approved strains, the bulk of the pot grown to date -- more
than 250 kilograms worth -- will be used only for non-human
research. Patients anxious for a steady supply of marijuana
are meanwhile fuming over the delays. Eight Canadians are heading
to court in September to have the program's restrictive regulations
struck down and the marijuana grown in Flin Flon turned over
to patients by year's end.

Toronto
lawyer Alan Young, who is heading up the case, said the bureaucracy
at Health Canada has come up with excuses to delay its release. "The
bureaucracy never wanted this program, it's too much work,
and I think there's been some intimidation that if Health Canada
started distributing it, the Americans would crack down on
customs," Mr. Young said. "It's really a shame to invest so
much money to grow this much marijuana, which far exceeds the
needs of a couple of clinical trials." Like some government
critics, Mr. Young suspects that Health Minister Anne McLellan,
who inherited the file from her predecessor Allan Rock, had
cold feet about moving ahead with a pot program. This spring,
Ms. McLellan said the drug's delivery would be delayed for
several months because of the inconsistent strength and wide
variety of the plants grown. Some reports implied that the
Saskatoon-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc., which won the contract
to run the Flin Flon pot operation, had bad, or impure, weed
on its hands. In response, PPS president Brent Zettl, who was
asked by Health Canada not to speak to reporters, wrote a letter
to the Health Minister, that was leaked to the news media,
defending the operation and the product it aims to produce.
Mr. Young said the issue of the "impure strains" being unsafe
is a "red herring," particularly since all the marijuana in
the mine is being grown in a clean, secure environment. "The
marijuana they're sitting on is light years safer than what's
currently available to medicinal users," Mr. Young said.

Ms.
Lynch explained that the company has been documenting its operating
procedures to ensure the pot is produced according to good
manufacturing practices. As well, she said Health Canada is
working with the company to conduct a chemical analysis of
the various plant strains. "You want to make sure you're getting
a level of consistency," Ms. Lynch said. She refused to offer
a date as to when the first approved harvest might reach clinical
trials. She said, however, that she realized many sick Canadians
are waiting for it. "We are moving ahead as quickly as we can," she
said. "But we are taking a responsible approach."

This
is little comfort to people such as Alison Myrden of Burlington,
Ont., one of the 806 Canadians licensed to possess marijuana
for medical purposes and one of the eight now suing the government.
Ms. Myrden, a former corrections officer who suffers from multiple
sclerosis, had bought marijuana from the Toronto Compassion
Centre club since 1997 to relieve pain. But earlier this week,
Toronto police raided and shut down the organization, which
sold cannabis to 1,200 ailing Ontarians. Four people were arrested
on trafficking charges, in part because it remains illegal
for people to sell pot to the sick, even though it is legal
for many of them to use it. "I don't know what I am going to
do -- I've never been able to grow it myself," said Ms. Myrden,
who has federal permission to cultivate her own pot plants. "The
government is forcing me to go out on the streets. If I don't
find a source on the black markets, I'm back to taking 32 pills
and 600 milligrams of morphine a day."

Police
raid of the largest medicinal drug network in Toronto has left
some 1,200 people looking to illicit sources to buy the marijuana
they use to control pain. They learned yesterday they will
no longer be able to buy marijuana, used as a palliative for
a number of terminal illnesses -- including cancer, AIDS/HIV,
hepatitis, arthritis and spinal injuries -- at the Toronto
Compassion Centre.

The
club, which started supplying patients in 1998, was ordered
shut yesterday by a Toronto judge after police confiscated "large
quantities" of marijuana and hashish from the group's Bathurst
Street headquarters. Steven Bacon, a 48-year-old club member
suffering from Hepatitis C and a spinal fusion of three vertebrae
in his neck, said yesterday he has been unsuccessful in his
attempts to grow pot and is angered by the closure. "I'm so
frustrated after almost three years of failed attempts to grow
my own marijuana. Now the only source available to us has been
taken down. For the life of me, I can't understand why they
would do this," he said. "Growing equipment is in the thousands
of dollars. I'm on a disability of $900 per month, in a position
that I can barely afford any medicine at all. We're not criminals.
We're sick people who need medicine.

There
is a need for these compassion clubs to keep us out of the
underground and organized crime units. Who else is going to
have that kind of marijuana?" The crackdown has also forced
organizations modelled after the Toronto Compassion Centre
to resort to clandestine tactics to provide marijuana to their
terminally ill clients, regardless of whether or not the clients
have been authorized by Health Canada to possess
the drug.

Warren
Hitzig stands with Alison Myrden, who is licensed by Health
Canada to use marijuana for medicinal purposes. Three men and
one woman arrested by a Toronto drug squad were released on
bail yesterday on the condition they shut down a medical marijuana
distribution network they have built up in order to sell drugs
to 1,200 Ontarians.

Warren
Hitzig, 25, Zachary Naftolin, 24, Andrea Horning, 41, and Markos
Koutoukis, 25, were taken into custody by members of the Toronto
Drug Squad South late Tuesday at the culmination of an investigation
by police into the Toronto Compassion Centre, a marijuana distribution
network run by Hitzig that offers "medicinal" drugs to terminally
ill club members. Yesterday, the four appeared before a Toronto
judge, who agreed to release them on bail under strict conditions,
including abandoning the practice of trafficking drugs to the
organization's 1,200 members, whose numbers have been growing
since the centre opened in 1998.

"Technically,
we know there is no legal authority for us to distribute marijuana
to sick people," said Alan Young, a Toronto lawyer and a spokesman
for the centre. Young said the centre has been operating illegally
for five years, ever since his requests for authorization were
turned down by the Department of Justice and Health Canada.

While
it is legal for patients to possess and cultivate marijuana
for certain medical conditions, it remains illegal for organizations
to sell marijuana to those patients. However, he said he was
shocked to learn police had raided the centre because police
and government officials have known about the operation for
years and have had full access to the premises, which he said
operates on the principle of full disclosure. "The police knew
that if they felt they needed to take the club down, we would
have given them the case on a silver platter," Young said. "I
have personally spoken to at least 12 police officers since
the start who have arrested people buying from the club. Each
and every time police were willing to turn a blind eye because
they knew what the public service element of this was," he
said. "If this club was going to traffic to non-medical users,
it would not operate openly." Because he sought authorization
from the beginning, Young said he believes the centre has a
legal case, based on the concepts of medical necessity and "no
other reasonable legal alternative," a principle used successfully
by abortion activist Henry Morgentaler.

He
said he believes the police investigation began last December,
when officers were called to the centre's headquarters on Bathurst
Street after a break-in. "We had had so many positive interactions
in the past, I believed we were skating on very solid ice," he
said. "Unfortunately [at the time of the break-in], there was
a certain amount of inventory in their basement, and with so
many officers being there no one was willing to simply walk
away from it.

I
told the investigating officer that if the police decided they
wanted to lay charges, I would provide any witnesses or documentation
they needed to build a case," he said. Yesterday Sergeant Jim
Muscat, a spokesman for the Toronto Police Department, said
police have used discretion when laying charges for possession
of small amounts of marijuana, but never for trafficking. "Essentially,
this location is a business where marijuana is sold for profit.
There is a fine line between what the explanation may be and
what the truth is," he said. "The officers investigating the
case have more evidence to suggest that marijuana is not merely
being sold to people for medicinal purposes." Warren Hitzig,
founder and director of the club, said prospective members
must present documentation from a physician stating they require
marijuana or hashish for medicinal purposes to help manage
pain or a terminal illness. Members must also observe strict
rules, including abstaining from reselling or redistributing
the drugs they buy at the non-profit centre regardless of whether
they have a licence from the federal government to possess
or grow pot.

His
centre, he said, exists because while the government has begun
to authorize terminally ill people to smoke pot, there is nothing
in place to help patients grow it. "We are trying to provide
a legitimate resource. The only reason we exist is because
the government hasn't established [a resource] itself," Hitzig
said.